Must... have... Flash CS4....

[gerbick]

A brand new property inspector and timeline will change how you work with Flash...

Editing animation using Bezier curves. Just click and drag the entire curve to move the animation about the screen. No need to select keyframes, just drag and drop...

This is the new animation timeline. You've got individual splines for positioning, transforms, colors, effects and filters, providing a level of control never formerly possible. You can have separate easing types for ANY parameter! Also note that in the property inspector you'll be able to set not only X and Y position of objects, but also the depth (Z)...

:drool:

read more here...

[jAQUAN]

I might actually start using the timeline again...




nah.

[creativeinsomnia]

Yeah some real cool stuff happening in CS4. I was at a flash conference most of this week and we saw some sneaks.

FLA's are a thing of the past. XFL will be the new format structured in XML and compiled like a zip file. Finally.

[jAQUAN]

Man that'd be nice to be able to update assets without recompiling.
Maybe it's something google can index?

[creativeinsomnia]

Yeah, so you have an XFL file that just contains all the library assets and an XML file that tells flash how to construct the FLA.

Source Control, you'll be able to do difs and such on these non binary files.

FLA's can be composed from a multitude of other applications besides flash.

The FLA is still going to be around in CS4 along with the XFL just for the grace period, but after that, it's gone for good.

[jAQUAN]

Oops I read that wrong. For some reason I thought you were talking about SWF's. I'm kinda getting away from the IDE anyway.

[atRax]

There's more than native z depth... or ease animation

Pixel Bender IS THE THING!!! New Text Layout is good for dynamic content and no worry for styling and look.

[asheep_uk]

But will it have a frame 0? That bugs me every time I use it.

[Genesis F5]

When someone asks you to count to ten, do you say "zero, one, two, three?" Out of curiosity, why would you need a frame '0'?

[WannaBe_80z]

Yeah why would there need to be a frame 0? the first frame obviously would be 1.

[MyFriendIsATaco]

Pshhtt... Who uses the IDE anymore?

Gerbs, aren't you a Flex dude, anyways?

[asheep_uk]

When someone asks you to count to ten, do you say "zero, one, two, three? Out of curiosity, why would you need a frame '0'?

Yeah why would there need to be a frame 0? the first frame obviously would be 1.

If you make an animation that fades in to frame 5 and then fades out to frame 10, the fade in is quicker than the fade out. Open Flash now and look at the timeline. Flash labels every 5 frames, apart from frame 0 which doesn't exist. To have correct timing the whole way through a Flash movie, you need to extend your first tween (or whatever) by one frame to make it accurate. If you stick with 5-frame tweens, you'll end up landing on #6 or #1 every time.

Also, Final Cut, Premiere and Avid all start at 00:00:00:00, because that's the accepted format - you start at zero.

[creativeinsomnia]

Pshhtt... Who uses the IDE anymore?

Um, how about most flash users?

I think it's cute when kids jump on Eclipse or Flex, no longer need the IDE, and think they're gods gift to flash.

I say use what you need to use to get the job done. Who cares?

I work for companies paying millions of dollars for us to build what we build, and I mostly use the Flash IDE.

[asheep_uk]

Here I made a little picture for you:



If you put your first keyframe on frame 1, then use units of 5s or 10s as a basis for timing, your first tween (or whatever) will be shorter than the rest, as you can't start from frame 0.

[MyFriendIsATaco]

Um, how about most flash users?

I think it's cute when kids jump on Eclipse or Flex, no longer need the IDE, and think they're gods gift to flash.

I say use what you need to use to get the job done. Who cares?

I work for companies paying millions of dollars for us to build what we build, and I mostly use the Flash IDE.

Harsh. I wasn't meaning to offend people. Almost everybody needs to use the IDE at one point or another. I do understand that. But as a programmer, mostly I'm not using the IDE because there is no way to do OOP with it, nor can I use version control and diffs through an fla.

Don't take that comment so seriously. This is the CL! I guess I should have added in a /sarcasm?

[PAlexC]

Animators are not programmers, they start at one. The rest of us (except ColdFusion programmers) start at 0 because that's what arrays are indexed to.

Once we impose the metric system on the U.S., we can implement our true evil plan of starting everything from 0, and take over the world.

On a side note, Director had adjustable bezier curves for tweening a long time ago, it was really useful for tweaking animations to get the 'just right'.

Flash CS4 will finally kill Director, the student has overtaken the master.

[PAlexC]

Pshhtt... Who uses the IDE anymore?

If I'm not mistaken, Flex has it's own movie hierarchy and framework, which is limiting in some aspects, but designed to facilitate certain types of projects. If you don't want to work within that framework, you've got no other real choice except the IDE.


In any case, this upgrade better be a ways off. One could make a career of staying on top of this sh*t.

[gerbick]

If I'm not mistaken, Flex has it's own movie hierarchy and framework...

But no timeline. I actually miss a timeline now.

...which is limiting in some aspects, but designed to facilitate certain types of projects. If you don't want to work within that framework, you've got no other real choice except the IDE.

You can develop in Notepad and compile via command line if you so wished. The Flex IDE is nothing more than Eclipse anyway. I'm not a fan of Eclipse, but trying the alternative for Flex dev... it's suicide.

In any case, this upgrade better be a ways off. One could make a career of staying on top of this sh*t.

Totally agree.

Gerbs, aren't you a Flex dude, anyways?

Don't remind me. I still use Flash... just that some of the things I've wanted are starting to finally show up in Flash's animation(s) tools. The last few iterations of Flash have been for the developer. This update looks to finally be for the creative.

FLA's are a thing of the past. XFL will be the new format structured in XML and compiled like a zip file. Finally.

DUDE! I'm personally tweaked at how they're going to open up the XFL format to people too. So even stuff like Swish, perhaps Swift3D can create files that I can open up, import/drag 'n drop...

[PAlexC]

You can develop in Notepad and compile via command line if you so wished.

But you're coding in MXML and compiling in the Flex compiler, which still puts you in that framework, as opposed to the 'traditional' timeline based one, which you can compile to using MTASC, correct?

[el-Ignoramus]

Shooot, I've been away from Flash for too long, it's starting to look intersting again, any price tag on that puppy???


I'm no longer enjoying Government discounts and I have to pay for my own S/W like any chu...errr one of you